Except that’s factually incorrect. The Democrats aren’t holding anyone hostage. The GOP are the ones who had the idea of filibustering unemployment benefits in order to get their way on tax cuts.
The GOP doesn’t want to extend the unemployment benefits, but wants to extend the tax cuts. The Democrats don’t want to extend the tax cuts, but want to extend the unemployment benefits. The GOP is willing to compromise. The Democrats aren’t.
Is that the narrative the Democrats want to sell? That’s the narrative the GOP can sell.
Refusing to extend unemployment is absolutely a losing issue for the GOP. If I were a Democratic leader I’d let them try it. When millions of people end up in the streets, it’s going to look really, really bad on their part. Keep bringing it up for a vote over and over again (just that one issue, not bundled together with other stuff), and let the Republicans keep voting against it over and over. They will lose in 2012 in the greatest landslide since the days of FDR. I’d bet the farm on it. Which is why it’s probably an empty threat; once the GOP congressman get swamped with angry phone calls and negative newspaper headlines, they’ll quickly have a “change of heart” (or at least they’ll feign a change in heart to keep their jobs).
Can the republicans, in reality, block unemployment extensions? They would have a lot of explaining to do, and I don’t think the explanations are there for them to use. I don’t think blaming the tax cut thing would fly. Not with anyone, democrat or republican, that I’ve talked to.
That’s not how it would work. First, the Democrats wouldn’t be able to extend the middle class tax cuts. So they will have raised taxes on the middle class. Then, in January, the Republican House would pass a bill extending unemployment benefits but with a marginally worse deal on taxes than the one now proposed. Democrats will be forced to pass it and get a worse deal, or reject it, and suddenly Democrats have not only rejected the extension, but done it in order to preserve a tax hike. So the GOP can then argue that the Democrats failed to extend the middle class tax cut and then affirmatively voted against it. Any Democratic explanation – right as it may be on the merits – will take more words than the GOP slogan about Democrats raising taxes on the middle class and blocking unemployment benefits.
Couldn’t the Democrats in the Senate hold their own series of votes to make Republicans look bad, since they will still have the majority in that chamber? As far as quickly understood soundbites goes, why not just insist that each issue by decided on it’s own merits instead of bundling each together for political reasons? That doesn’t take more than 15 seconds to say.
Truth is mighty and will prevail. There is nothing the matter with this, except that it ain’t so.
~Mark Twain
I’m not sure about that, RP. I’m in the middle, and don’t really want my tax to go up. But, to be honest, it’s not really all that much. I could live with it. I will live with it if doing so will keep all those unemployed off the street. To say nothing of how the crime rate will increase, and the middle class will pay for that too.
And I’m really tired of letting the rich push me around and keeping my mouth shut about it.
I say let the cuts expire and see what actually happens.
Well, they can hold votes, but they can’t pass any bills. The difference matters. But more importantly, they won’t do that. If you want to direct righteous anger at Democrats, you should aim it right at Ben Nelson et al. They are the ones that actually deserve it.
There are also important structural differences. The Republicans want the narrative to be about taxes as much as possible, even if the actual content of the narrative would be negative for an intelligent news consumer. The vast majority of people just hear the word taxes, a word they negatively associate with Democrats.
Democrats can’t make that argument with a straight face. Any serious Democratic legislation requires bundling (see, e.g., health care reform). That’s an argument they’d be sure to have to repudiate.
You expect too much of politicians when you expect them to be consistant. You expect too much of the public to call them out for their inconsistancy. The soundbite war might be winnable for the Dems, if they had any skill at it. Maybe they should pass the collection plate and hope they have enough to hire Karl Rove to work for their side.
DADT failed today. It was 57-40 for. But 40 is enough for a filibuster and it will not go forward. Strange how 57 to 40 loses, but the Repub standing filibuster warps democracy yet again.
The new rules are that it takes 60 votes to get anything passed in the Senate that the Democratic party proposes.
Anything.
We should just start lying like the Republicans do.